Smyrna tears down Aunt Fanny's Cabin

Aug. 13—SMYRNA — Aunt Fanny's Cabin, the historic building that formerly housed a controversial, Old South-themed restaurant, is no more.

City Administrator Joe Bennett and Mayor Derek Norton confirmed the structure was torn down Friday after the City Council voted to move forward with demolition Thursday night.

The end of the saga of Aunt Fanny's — loathed by many as a relic of racism, defended by some as historically significant — came after plans to move the building fell through.

The council had previously approved a proposal from Jim Lane to move the structure to a Carroll County farm. Bennett, however, said the city of Mt. Zion denied Lane's request, prompting him to return the property to the city.

A second person who also expressed interest in the building had by then decided against taking it, Bennett added.

In December, the City Council approved the recommendations of a task force to either demolish the 19th century cabin or allow someone to move it on their own dime. Once Lane's proposal fizzled out, said Norton, the council revisited the proposal at their Thursday work session (the item was not listed on the council's agenda).

Norton said Councilwoman Susan Wilkinson asked to revisit the agreed-upon plan, a measure which failed 5-2 with Wilkinson and Councilman Charles "Corkey" Welch in support.

Wilkinson and Welch could not be reached for comment Friday.

'I know what it represents'

Originally built for sharecroppers when Smyrna was home to less than 500 people, the cabin by the mid-20th century became a restaurant which glorified the antebellum South.

It took its name from Fanny Williams, a Black woman who worked as a housekeeper for Smyrna's Campbell family, which started the restaurant. Williams has been credited as an early civil rights icon in Cobb County who took on the Ku Klux Klan and helped found the Cobb Cooperative in Marietta, the state's first all-Black hospital.

"In all of the debate," said Norton, "that was the one constant — everybody agreed that she ought to be properly memorialized, whether you were for the cabin staying or going, or being demolished or not."

The business closed in the 1990s, and was moved to its present location on Atlanta Road. But the city at the time didn't install a foundation, and the structure gradually fell into disrepair from water damage and a lack of upkeep. Smyrna's building instructor deemed the building unfit for occupancy last year.

The council took up the question of what to do with the building in December 2021, ruling out an estimated $400,000 to $600,000 renovation. A six-member task force — which included council members Welch, Travis Lindley, and Lewis Wheaton — came back with the plan to either move or demolish the building.

Said Wheaton, then the council's sole Black member, at the time, "We uncovered a lot of the photos from that era and some other things. It's pretty visceral — I mean, you have young boys, young Black boys with boards around their necks, you have them dancing on tables, you have Black children singing songs about the resurrection of the Old South.

He also described "Placemats with incredibly graphic, and just incredibly emotional images of Black children with massive lips and spiked hair. This is the kind of thing that was going on there."

Lindley and Wheaton could not be reached for comment Friday.

Lisa Williams Castleberry, who said she worked at the restaurant in the 1970s, told the council, "I know what it represents, and I am in agreement of having it demolished. But please do something for Fanny Williams. I think she deserves to be honored."

'A freedom fighter'

But as the city moved forward, some residents said the structure should be saved for its historical value. Former Councilwoman Maryline Blackburn said the city's past was being "swept under a rug," and argued at a January press conference that Fanny Williams' story cannot be told without preserving the cabin.

"We do not want to continue to erase the history of our people," said Jeriene Bonner Grimes, president of the Cobb County chapter of the NAACP. "She was very significant, she was a freedom fighter, she was an advocate."

Blackburn and Grimes could not be reached for comment Friday. Pat Burns, an advocate of preserving the building, said Friday that the cabin was the only memorial the city needed.

"When history — whether it's good or bad — is destroyed, it leaves a void in the soul of a city. And it's something that can't be rebuilt, or moved on from, it just is an empty spot," she said.

While the council stuck to the December plan to move or demolish the house, a deadline for proposals was extended from February to mid-March. In the final hours, the city received four proposals, settling on Lane's to take the structure to Ashley Limousin Farms in Carroll County.

That plan was evidently rejected by the city of Mt. Zion, according to Bennett, but Mt. Zion officials could not be reached for comment on why the proposal was turned down.

Norton said the city will press ahead with developing a memorial to Williams on the site where a pile of rubble stood by midday Friday.

"We've been working on this about a year. Some things take longer than others. We will now move on to the next thing," he said. "We've got plenty of stuff on our plates in the city, a lot of good projects, a lot of positive energy and momentum and a lot of opportunity, and I'm looking forward to focusing on those."